Boom, boom: Asia Pacific arrivals continue to soar

A new report released by the Pacific Asia Travel Association – the PATA Annual Tourism Monitor 2018 – shows the distribution of these arrivals was such, that in terms of the destination regions and sub-regions covered in the report, Asia received the majority of these arrivals in 2017 with a 72% share, followed by the Americas with 24% and the Pacific with the remaining four per cent.

Asia Pacific has set a new record for foreign arrivals – with a cumulative count of 636 million foreign arrivals into the region in 2017.

A new report released by the Pacific Asia Travel Association – the PATA Annual Tourism Monitor 2018 – shows the distribution of these arrivals was such, that in terms of the destination regions and sub-regions covered in the report, Asia received the majority of these arrivals in 2017 with a 72% share, followed by the Americas with 24% and the Pacific with the remaining four per cent.

In total, 11 Asia Pacific destinations each received more than one million additional foreign arrivals into their respective destinations between 2016 and 2017.

Only four of the 47 destinations (French Polynesia, Korea (ROK), Malaysia and Palau) reported declines in their inbound foreign arrival numbers, and these ranged from a minor loss of 4,000 arrivals to a much more significant contraction of nearly 3.9 million (Korea).

Overall however, the Asia Pacific region received nearly 35 million more foreign arrivals in 2017 than it did just one year earlier.

Intra-regional travel flows remained very strong for most Asia Pacific regions in 2017 with almost 94% of the foreign arrivals into Asia originating from within Asia itself. For the Americas, the intra-regional proportion of international travel was 78%.

In terms of supplier markets into Asia Pacific in 2017, the vast majority of foreign arrivals came from Asia (62%), followed by the Americas (18%) and then Europe (12%). China was the top supplier market (112.418 million), followed by Hong Kong SAR (95.04 million) and USA (47.46 million).

In total, there were 14 origin markets that each generated in excess of 10 million arrivals into Asia Pacific in 2017.

PATA CEO Dr. Mario Hardy noted, “Overall, it was another very robust year for international travel within Asia Pacific. The link between perceptions of safety and travel has always been obvious. What is also becoming clearer, however, is the link – in some cases, at least – between public policy and destination choice.

“The need for continued political harmony is ever more important if our sector of the global economy is to flourish equally across destinations.”